


Hypothetical

by somehowunbroken



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-10
Updated: 2010-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which we find out that John likes his team and Evan wishes he knew Superman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hypothetical

“So who’s your dream team?”

John turned to his cellmate and blinked. “What?”

Evan gave him a glance and repeated himself. “Who’s your dream team?”

The two men had been leading their teams on a routine meet-and-greet, which in the Pegasus galaxy included things like angry natives and getting separated from each other. John and Evan were both reasonably sure that the rest of their collective teams had gotten through the Gate; they had acted as distractions to let the others get back. Hopefully, a rescue was being organized and they’d be out of here soon.

“Um,” john replied.

Evan rolled his eyes. “If you could choose anyone for your team, who would it be?”

“Is this how you spend your spare time?”

“Yes.” Evan gave him a look. “Don’t tell me you don’t, sir. I’ll be forced to call you on it.”

“I’d take them team I already have, thanks,” John replied evasively.

“Fine, don’t play,” Evan said, amused. “I’d take Einstein for my scientist.”

John sat up. “Oh, anyone anyone? I thought we meant people on Atlantis.”

Evan waved his hand dismissively. “Why limit yourself? It’s hypothetical.”

“Good point.” John squinted up at the ceiling of their hut-prison. “Scientist, huh? To be honest, I’d probably still take McKay. He’s actually as smart as he thinks he is, not that I think he should ever hear anyone say that.”

“Don’t worry,” Evan said immediately. “No way in hell I’d ever tell him that.”

“Good,” John said decisively. “Nobody would ever hear the end of it.”

“Okay, moving on,” Evan said. “Second in command. Someone responsible, someone who can kick ass and take names, someone who will drag your sorry ass back to the Gate when you get knocked unconscious.” He slid a sideways glance at John. “Hypothetically, of course. Sir.”

John just glared at him. “Funny. I’m hysterical over here, Lorne.”

“I’d take Superman,” Evan decided, lying on his back and staring upwards. “The man’s invincible, he can fly, and so far, we haven’t run across kryptonite in Pegasus.”

“I’d stick with Teyla,” John said firmly. “She’s pretty much invincible, I’ve seen her stop bullets by talking people out of shooting at us, and she might not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even have a kryptonite.”

“I think you’re missing the point of the exercise, sir.”

“If I can have anyone, I’m taking Teyla,” John insisted. “Since we’re talking about _dragging my sorry ass back to the Gate_, Major, I’m gonna go with someone who’s done it before. Superman has no experience in this galaxy.”

“Fine.” Evan stared straight up, hands behind his head. As far as incarcerations went, this wasn’t actually so bad. There was straw spread on the floor, and it appeared to be clean, the planet was warm but not too hot, and they’d been given food and water. As a bonus, he had entertainment, as uncooperative as said entertainment might be behaving at the moment.

“Third person, then,” he continued. “The backup, the one you can count on to agree with your plans and sometimes come up with even crazier ones, the person who will make sure everyone’s on board with what needs to be done no matter what.”

They both looked thoughtful for a few minutes.

“I’d take Sergeant Mehra, I think,” Evan said finally. “She’s just this side of insane and she’s pretty good at motivating everyone else on her team to do what needs to be done.”

“Dusty?” John sounded surprised. “She’s just one side of insane, anyway. Hell, it’s your hypothetical team; if you want to get them dragged to hell by their earlobes, go for it.”

“Mehra’s not that bad,” Evan said mildly. “She’s loyal and smart.”

“You make her sound like a golden retriever,” John responded. “Don’t let her hear you describe her like that. For your own good.”

Evan lifted a shoulder. “She likes me. I’d be fine.”

“Your funeral,” John muttered.

“Who would you take?”

John was silent for a moment. “Ronon.”

Evan let out an annoyed sigh. “Sheppard…”

“He goes along with pretty much all of my ideas,” John insisted. “He’s been known to come up with some good ones, too.”

“They all involve C4,” Evan muttered.

“You love C4,” John countered. “And, hey, he’s good at handling McKay. That’s like a superpower all by itself.”

“I’ll give you that one,” Evan said grudgingly. He opened his mouth again, but stilled as they heard muffled shouting from outside. John grinned.

“Let’s see whose super team came through for us,” he challenged, poking his head out of the hut. “Superman?” he called loudly. “Einstein? You guys out there?”

“He’s gone insane,” Evan heard McKay’s voice ring out. “We should have come right back for them. I told you.”

Another voice answered. “Rodney,” Teyla said soothingly, “we had to wait for the other team to suit up.”

“Can it, McKay,” Ronon’s voice sounded next. “He’s fine. You’re fine, right?”

“We’re fine,” John said cheerily, pulling his head back into the hut. “Hey, Lorne, you were one for three.”

Evan sat up. “Huh?”

“Major Lorne!” Sergeant Mehra’s voice rang out. “Why didn’t you just blast your way out of here? I know damn well you keep C4 with you in unmentionable places.”

Evan dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “We agreed not to talk about that, Sergeant.”

“Speak for yourself,” she said, entering the hut and surveying its two occupants. “If it’s all the same to you, sirs, let’s get the hell home.”

“Amen,” John agreed, and as Evan walked past him out of the hut, he said, “Unmentionable places?”

“Sir, with all due respect?” Evan waited until John nodded. “Don’t ever bring that up again.”

“She did.” John pointed at Sergeant Mehra.

“I like her more,” Evan replied evenly. “Also, she’s scarier. Also also, she was present for the incident in question.”

“Okay,” John said, walking ahead. “I’ll just ask her, then.”

Evan ran to catch up. “Mehra! Dusty! Don’t tell him!”

The laughter rang all the way to the Gate.


	2. C4

“So what you’re telling me is that we’re stuck here.”

Dusty looked around, unimpressed by her surroundings. She was offworld with the most mismatched team she could imagine: herself, Sergeant Stackhouse from AR-6, Dr. Zelenka (who almost never went offworld), and Major Lorne from AR-2. They’d done some sort of weird shuffle of the teams for reasons that Dusty couldn’t care less about. She’d had her orders and, like a good soldier, hadn’t questioned them when they came about.

She was now reevaluating that obedience. The strange little team was stuck in a hut, an honest-to-God hut, on this dingy planet, being guarded by natives who were brandishing their own weapons at them. They’d been divested of those weapons as soon as they’d been captured, thanks to Stackhouse’s big mouth, and locked in the hut, thanks to Dusty’s witty comebacks.

So here they sat: offworld, weird team, tiny hut. Dusty scowled as Major Lorne glanced around and smiled slowly.

“Not necessarily.”

“So we’re _not_ stuck here?” Dusty made a show of looking around. There was only one way in and out of the hut, and there were at least six armed men within four feet of the door. “We look pretty stuck to me.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Major Lorne chided. “There’s always another way out.”

He unzipped his tac vest and slid it off, then reached down and, in one surprising motion, pulled his shirt up and off.

“If one of us is going to flash them, sir, shouldn’t it be her?” Stackhouse piped up from the corner. Dusty shot him a glare; so did the Major. Dr. Zelenka snickered in the corner but otherwise kept his thoughts to himself.

“You can stay here,” Major Lorne informed him, “if you’re going to behave like that.” As he spoke, he was unwinding what looked like an extra-long Ace bandage from his torso. The bandage wound down around his hips, and he had to unbutton his pants and wiggle out of them a little before he could get it all the way loose. He pulled out what looked like…

“Is that C4?” Dusty asked from across the hut. She’d decided pretty much the second her CO-for-the-mission had started stripping that she should be as far away from him as she could. “You keep C4 strapped to your ass?”

“You can stay too,” Major Lorne threatened her, glancing out the door to make sure he hadn’t been noticed. “Everybody clear away from that wall.” The rest of the team hurried to do so as the clearly insane Major set up the charge.

“Cover your eyes and ears, ladies and gents,” he said, absurdly cheerful, and lit the charge.

The blast was extreme; they had all taken cover behind the room’s only furniture – a shoddily constructed desk – and the explosion threw what felt like half the planet’s worth of dirt on top of them. There was a lot of yelling from outside, but the team didn’t stick around to listen. Instead, they ran for what had been the back of the hut towards the forest.

“You keep C4 strapped to your ass,” Dusty repeated as she ran a little behind, keeping Major Lorne covered as he struggled to run and button up his pants at the same time. It didn’t really matter; it seemed like the villagers were more concerned with the fact that they were suddenly missing half a hut than they were about missing their prisoners. “You are clearly insane.”

“Everyone needs some emergency C4,” he said, still weirdly cheerful. Dusty abruptly realized that the stories she’d heard about the Major and loving to blow things up had been more than urban legend.

“What if it goes off down there?”

Major Lorne shrugged. “So far, so good,” he said with a smile as the neared the Gate. He stopped as they drew up to it, standing in front of the DHD and crossing his arms until they all looked at him impatiently.

“This isn’t going to get around,” he said in a warning tone. “We escaped from the hut without blowing it to hell.”

“We certainly did not,” Dr. Zelenka pointed out, crossing his arms right back at him. “That was hilarious.”

“Agreed,” Stackhouse joined in. “You’re telling me we can’t share how we got out?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Major Lorne said with a nod.

Dusty shrugged and turned to the other two. “I’m fine with that.” All three stared at her: two with incredulity, one with thanks. She smiled as sweetly as she could as she ducked around the Major and dialed the Gate. “You guys really want to admit we were rescued by crotch explosives?”

She heard the laughter and indignant spluttering behind her as she strolled through the Gate, ready to make her report.


End file.
